>> thanks, chris. and thanks to you for tuning in. i'm live in memphis, tennessee, where i've been meeting with leaders about protecting the right to vote. 12 days until election day. here's where the race stands. the poll tracker national average shows president obama now in the lead. getting 47.8% of the popular vote. mitt romney has 46.9% the new york times 538 blog says if the election were held today, the president would win 291 electoral votes. mitt romney would get 247. 270 are needed to win the white house. 538 says the president has a 71% chance of winning. romney has a 29% chance. and as of tonight, 7.7 million

people have already voted and that includes the president who cast his own ballot today in chicago. we'll have much more on the early voting later on in the show. but we start with tonight's lead. mitt romney's mourdock mess. senate candidate richard mourdock's god intended rape comments are now threatening to undermine mitt romney's careful effort to appeal to voters as moderate mitt. desperate to hide the extreme republican positions on women's health, romney is just wishing and hoping this will all go away. but someone forgot to tell the press corps this morning in ohio. >> governor, do you wish senator mourdock would pull that ad?

>> thank you. have a good day. >> you, too. >> that's me? >> have a great day. >> thank you. have a good day. but please don't ask be about god intending rape anymore. this is awkward for mitt romney after all at this hour romney's ad endorsing mourdock is still running in indiana and the campaign has no plans to pull support. and while governor romney tries to hide his own party is trying to keep the story out of the airways. he's in a close election and congressman mike pence running for governor in indiana and you

know it's bad when governor haley barbour calls and then senator john mccain. he single handedly exposed the issue in the are republican party on the issue of abortion. last night he broke with the governor saying he would not support mourdock unless he offers an apology for the rape comment. but by this morning it was all forgotten. senator mccain emerged to reverse himself, saying that he was, quote, glad that mr. mourdock apologized and he hopes the people of indiana will elect mr. mourdock to the u.s. senate. a year ago he was asked about a personhood bill on mike huckabee's show. here's what he said. >> would you have supported the constitutional amendment that life is established at

conception? >> absolutely. >> absolutely. as for mr. mourdock, he believes that a woman must carry a rapist's baby because life is life, period. so does paul ryan. >> i've always adopted the idea that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life. >> the method of conception. that's what we call rape. no wonder mitt romney can't reject mourdock. when it comes to policy, paul ryan and mourdock have the same position. the issue has now caught up with them all, just days before the election and president obama knows it. >> let me make you a single proposition. rape is rape. it is a crime.

so these various distinctions about -- don't make so much sense to me. don't make any sense to me. this is why you don't want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women's health care decisions. >> 12 days ago, how long can governor romney hide in plain sight? joining me now is michelle cottle, washington correspondent for newsweek and the daily beast and alicia menendez. thank you for joining me. >> thanks, rev. >> michelle, how hard is it for romney to dodge these questions for the next two weeks? >> two weeks? you know, i know he's probably waking up some mornings going, how did i get into this party? first he has to deal with todd akin, now he's got to deal with mourdock. i don't think the press corps is

going to let this go. why is he ducking it, how long is he going to duck it? we don't have any debates left to distract us. this is the crazy season in the campaign. it would be better if he came out and addressed it and got it over with. >> alicia, can he duck it for two weeks or is he going to duck it once and for all? >> it means that they've made a calculated decision that they are not going to talk about it and what is really sad is that we continue to talk about ex acceptings leads us away from the major conversation which is that in the case of 90% of abortions, mitt romney would want those abortions to be illegal. that's the conversation that we actually need to have front and center. so this entire conversation has shifted to the right instead of us talking about the fact, the personhood amendment, as you said, about mitt romney's support of the blunt amendment, the fact that he wants to overturn the affordable care act

which provides all sorts of protections for women to have access to contraceptives which would then lower the rate of unintended pregnancy. that's what is at the heart of all of this. instead, republicans keep pushing us into this conversation that exists only on the margins and that in and of itself is unfortunate. >> michelle, let's go there a minute. let's go there. the fact is, as she said, women's right to choose under governor romney's policies, more than 90% of abortions would be illegal. rape, incest, and life of the mother are the only exceptions under his policies. those cases account for less than 90% of abortions. so under the romney plan, 90% of abortions would be illegal, contraceptions would be limited. his own policy is extremely aggressive in terms of a woman's right to choose, michelle.

>> there's no question that this is an issue for a lot of women out there. it's fired up a lot of women and i think that romney knows it's a problem. this is why you saw him a few weeks ago telling the des moines register folks that he couldn't see legislation coming across his desk, it would become part of his agenda. he tried to skirt the issue. and i think once he got into office he would probably do a couple of flip-flops and this wouldn't be front and center on his agenda. but it does beg the question of, if he is dealing with a very right wing congress, how much he would get pressured to make this part of his agenda. >> let me ask you this, alicia. as he remains silent, the president keeps hinting on women's issues. let me show you this and tell me how this will also force -- possibly force mr. romney to come out and say something in the next two weeks.

watch this. >> you can choose to turn back the clock 50 years on women or in this election you can stand up for the kind of america that says we embrace everybody. >> i don't think any politician in washington, most of whom are male, should be making health care decisions for women. >> i believe women are capable and should make their own health care decisions for themselves. >> with the president coming out over and over again saying his statements appealing to women voters with this, how does romney not address this, alicia? >> i think it's a great question and i think it's a tricky balance for romney. on one hand he want to make sure that he's maintaining the evangelical support that he has worked really hard to garner during this election and on the other hand he knows that what he is doing is firing up the key

component of the democratic base, unmarried women. the challenge for democrats is that it's less about persuading them and actually about making sure that those women who register to vote are actually showing up to vote. that's the piece that the democrats will need to figure out in the next two weeks because on the persuasion piece, team obama has been handed a huge gift. >> now, michelle, one of the things that was a little surprising to me is that mr. mourdock has actually said the controversial rape comment helped him in the race. campaign votes after the comment, mourdock replied, i know we did and santorum came out in his defense. watch this. >> it would be beyond meaning to get that understanding of t look, this gochya stuff is just

that. >> it's to stand up for women questioning something like this and isn't this a real problem for romney? >> any time you don't like a statement in politics, you refer to it as gotchya politics. yes, it fires up the base for the candidate who said it because it defends one of their own and fires up women across the country and gives obama excellent talking points and while romney has been trying to keep this election focused strictly on the economy every time, social issues are mentioned and he has to address or dodge those. it works to obama's favor. >> now, one thing i have to say, alicia, is that some republicans

are coming out against mourdock. senator kelly ayotte says mourdock's comments do not represent her views. and mike pence says, i strongly disagree with the statement made by richard mourdock. i urge him to apologize. and governor haley barbour, what he said super bowl kind of crazy. i think mr. romney not saying is a loud statement within itself. >> i agree. >> michelle cottle and alicia menendez -- go ahead. i'll let you finish. >> we had governor huntsman on and this is the problem with mitt romney. he doesn't know how to talk about a serious issue, one of the most important issues a woman could make in her life, and say, i understand what this means for you. i understand what this means for your family. i'm going to have the decency to talk about it that acknowledges all of the complexities around

it and instead he says, have a nice day and that's not enough for american women. >> thank you. michelle cottle and alicia men mendez, thank you for your time tonight. >> thanks, rev. coming up, this is what real momentum looks like. colin powell endorses the president and the right wing can't handle it. wait until you see this. and the good times keep coming from mitt romney. if you believe mitt romney. what his campaign is now saying about ohio that we need to talk about. plus, the early voting president. he returns to chicago to vote. we'll tell you why early voting is the key to this election. and it's a mysterious story that our facebook fans are very curious about. does the romney family own voting machines?

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colin powell had some strong words today in support of the president and against mitt romney. the right wing just can't handle it. that's next. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money.

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but today it was a big thing, a big endorsement from a very big name. today george w. bush's former secretary of state colin powell threw his support behind the president for the second time. in 2008, powell's major endorsement preferred credibility to then candidate obama but this time he was quite extraordinary. he gave a defense of the president's record. >> i voted for him in 2008 and i plan to stick with him in 2012 and i'll be voting for he and vice president biden next month. and let me say why. when he took over, the country was in very difficult straits. it was one of the worst depressions that we've seen. and we've come out of the dive and we're startinging to gain altitude. i also saw the president get us out of one war, start to get us out of another war and did not get us into any new wars. i think we ought to keep on the

track that we are on. >> continue on the track that we are on. this is coming from a lifelong republican. but he did more. he gave cutting details on why a vote for mitt romney is a mistake. >> not only am i not comfortable with what governor romney is proposing for his economic plan, the governor who is speaking on monday night at the debate was saying things that were quite different than what he said earlier. so i'm not quite sure which governor romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy. it's hard to fix it. it's a moving target. >> this endorsement comes just as mitt romney is claiming he's moderate mitt. that gets difficult to do when the real moderate republican, colin powell, says he can't stand behind romney. and to make matters more worse

for the moderate mitt effort, guess who is raising big bucks for team romney tonight? this man. dick cheney. wow. just when romney's trying to be mr. moderate, hear comes papa cheney. colin powell or dick cheney. gee, i wonder who's support you'd rather have? joining me now, ryan grim, washington bureau chief of the hufg ton post and erin mcpike, national political reporter for real clear politics. she joins us live from cleveland where the president will hold a rally in just a couple of hours. thank you both for being here tonight. >> reporter: thank you. >> ryan, what does this second endorsement of the president mean with 12 days to go? >> well, for one thing, you know, this was to use a phrase he'd recognize, this was one of

the knowns/unknowns left out on the endorsement field and to get an idea of how important it is, try to think of what would have happened if he decided to go with romney. that would have been a big symbolic move that people are ready to discard obama and ready to move to romney. so the fact that that didn't happen, that might actually be the most symbolic and important part of it. but, you know, colin powell, he represents that dying breed, kind of a republican frozen in time, this moderate republican. so if there are independents out there who consider themselves to lean republican and they listen to the case that oh colin powell made, it could sway them at the last second. but there are so few undecideds, it does raise questions about what has happened in of the last few weeks. >> now, erin, when you look at the fact that -- take what ryan is saying about moderate

republicans appearing to be a dying breed and immigration and on education and affordable health care, when it comes down to issues, he really went with where his issues brought him to support the president. is it very, very odd, then, that someone in these days and times still goes with where the issues are and not just have a blind loyalty to their party even when their party appears to have gone close to off the deep end right as far as i am concerned?

>> well, you're absolutely right. however, i would say that colin powell's endorsement carries the most weight with the military vote and that's especially important right now because president obama appears to be trailing mitt romney in north carolina and virginia where there's a heavy segment of that population that does vote on military issues and we know right now that mitt romney has a radio ad that is making fun of the president's comment in the debate about horses and bayonets because they wanted to drive up that military turnout but colin powell's endorsement may be able to offset that a little bit and also joe biden, the vice president's sun and military veteran is heading into virginia and north carolina this weekend to campaign for the president. so right now this is part of a situation that might help the president offset some of that vote that mitt romney should be winning in those states. >> now, ryan, today mitt romney was in ohio.

he was talking about a big change. let me show you what he said. >> given the big challenges we have and the big election we have, it's time for a big change. and paul ryan and i represent a big change for america. it's going to start getting better just with the news we voted for big change. >> it's time for a big change. >> now, ryan, is this a big change when the daily -- the dallas morning news reports today that dick cheney is fundraising for romney today in texas? quote, former vice president dick cheney is headlining a fund-raiser for mitt romney today at dallas lovefield. also scheduled to appear is reince priebus and glenn beck. is that a big change? dick cheney raising money for you and glenn beck? >> romney even went back or sent

paul ryan back to the same place where they filmed the 47% fund-raiser. so the campaign is dry for cash and seems to kind of overwhelm its political instinct. if it's mitt romney showing up for the foreign policy debate where he is hugging the president's ankles and saying, whoa, that's what i believe, then it's not much change. but if it's the mitt romney having a fund-raiser with dick cheney and glenn beck and something like 17, 20 bush foreign advisers, yes, that's going to be a change about what we had under the bush years and, you know, it's apparently a low bar for what it takes of collin poll foreign policy. obama didn't start a new war.

baby steps. we'll take that on the foreign policy front. >> let me ask erin in the short time we have left, republicans already showing an endorsement. listen to what john mccain had to say. >> i used to be a great admirer of colin powell. we were friends. i think one of the sad aspects of his career is going to united nations security council and telling them things about iraq that were absolutely false. all i can say is that general powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further. >> now, you know, that's interesting to me, erin, that he would call mr. powell's appearance at the u.n. sad in his life when mr. powell was saying what they gave him and

senator mccain supported. talk about dick cheney and then, that's what powell was doing, the information that the administration had supported. but is this sour grapes from senator mccain because colin powell also didn't endorse him in 2008 and supported then senator obama? >> well, al, you took the words right out of my mouth. that's just what i was going to say, that it is sour grapes, very much so for john mccain but also the fact that one of mitt romney's top surrogates in john mccain came out and had to criticize colin powell, tells you that this endorsement really stung. not only for john mccain but for mitt romney as well. >> erin -- >> colin powell has apologized for that presentation to the u.n. and if john mccain has apologized for the things that led us into war, i missed that. >> all right. good point. ryan grim and erin mcpike, thank

you for your time tonight. >> thank you. coming up, today president obama did something that no president has ever done before and it could be big in this election and something weird is going on. mitt romney keeps throwing out good news. today he said something about ohio. it's really kecurious. we're going straight to that straight ahead. stay with us. [ female announcer ] the next generation of investing technology

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have you joined the "politicsnation" conversation on facebook yet? today everyone was excited to see the president vote early. michelle says, always making history. how wonderful. and tee says, he's leading by example, like a leader should. folks have been sending us photos of their early voting experiences, too this picture was sent from the hour-long line she waited for in charlotte and this is a long line snaking around a library in north carolina. he says voters are fired up. we want to see you cast your ballot. go to our facebook page. that's facebook.com/politicsnation to share your early voting photos with us. ♪

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governor romney's got a new strategy. no matter what's actually happening in the race, he just acts like he's winning. it's the fake it till you make it campaign. romney aides telling "new york times" that, quote, cultivating the image that he is a winner could be mr. romney's best strategy for actually winning. wait a minute. what happened to the numbers guy, the bottom line businessman? news flash. the romney campaign is now driven by the power of thinking. >> i want you to know how optimistic i am. this is about to get real good. >> romney wants everyone to think things are real good. he's sending out blast -- e-mail blasts about fundraising.

look, mom, i'm bringing home the bacon. and he's trying so hard to convince everyone that his campaign is on the move. he released a statement saying ohio is, quote, a dead heat with romney on an unmistakable track. a dead heat? an upward track? poll out yesterday shows president obama is ahead by 5% in the state. is that the upward track they are talking about? yes. we all know governor romney narrowed the gap after the first presidential race and debate but things have been flat for two weeks. more and more journalists are calling romney's bluff. this so called momentum. so don't believe the romney hype. we're on to his strategy of

faux-mentum. joining me now is david kornacki and margie omera. thank you for coming on the show tonight. >> you're welcome. >> steve, does this seem to be the way that real campaigns act? what's going on with the romney campaign in. >> i think there's obviously a recognition on their part and they have actually moved into a very, very slight lead but they have never been ahead in the national polling averages but when you're down to the last two weeks and start looking at the electoral situation, they are facing two to three-point gaps in wisconsin and ohio and there's really almost no way for romney to pick off one of those states. so i think they look at it and

say, one of two things have to happen to get them over the hump there. one is, they need an extra spike in enthusiasm among republican voters. it's hard to do because there's so much enthusiasm already but maybe the idea of momentum, the idea that he's on the verge of victory would help there but the other thing is, create some kind of late movement among swing voters who are very soft obama voters but gets momentum if they can put the idea out there that, hey, they are about to defeat obama. it can take the most wobbly obama supporters and move them over. i think it's a recognition on their part that they need something to move two, three points and that's a lot in the last two weeks of a race. >> now, margie, there are two brand new battleground polls out today. in colorado, the president is tied with romney. in nevada he's established a three-point lead. so all of this romney momentum doesn't really translate when

you look at the polls. i don't know what he's looking at. >> well, i certainly don't begrudge him his strategy. that's a perfectly fine strategy. that's one thing we know will not change between now and election day and states like owing high ohio, romney has to win. states like nevada, a lot of handicappeders are saying they are going to go democrat. put them in the blue column. and looking at polls, whether it's in ohio or wisconsin, even some states that are swinging like florida that are in play like virginia, you see some stagnation and the articles that you mentioned in the beginning where you have mark, my editor of the huffington post and those are probably the three best experts on this and the consensus is the momentum came really after the first debate and is pretty much stabilized. now, that doesn't mean that mitt

romney can't win. it doesn't mean that he can't move in the next two weeks and certainly people should vote. if you're an early voting state, you should vote. no one should feel complacent, on not on either side. but the moment that we had mitt romney control the dialogue was after the first debate. there haven't been any moments like that moment where mitt romney has been controlling the message and right now where you have colin powell's endorsement and richard mourdock's comments, we'll see how that will extend in the final stretch. >> and you also had a pretty bad debate about romney in the last debate. steve, let me also say this. many of us feel that the ground game, what goes on the ground, the ability to pull out voters is going to be decisive and when

you see that, you see the field offices, if that tells a story. in ohio, president obama has 131 field offices compared to romney's 40. in florida, president obama has 106 compared to governor romney's 47. in virginia, president obama has more than double. 61 to 30. so field offices any indication of the thoroughness or the breadth of the field operation, the president looks good in these swing states. >> yeah, i think you have a couple things going on there. there is an enthusiasm gap between the parties right now. so it takes -- it will probably take less effort on republican's part to get people to turn out because they are so motivated to get out and vote obama out. it's more of a labor on the democratic side to try to achieve a parity there. however, there's an obvious

opportunity because there is a disconnect between lookinging at the polling models and look only at likely voters, romney performs much better in those than when you have all registered voters. so the bigger the pool of voters, the more people who participate and the more people that the obama campaign is able to bring out through its own mobilization efforts. that will work towards obama's advantage. >> well, we'll see. i'm seeing a lot of long lines in early voting and all of the polls are saying they are going overwhelmingly so far for the president. but we'll see. steve kornacki and margie omero, thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> and catch steve on "the cycle" weekdays at 3:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. coming up, president obama makes history by doing something that republicans haven trying to stop others from doing all over

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what no president has ever done before. he flew back home to chicago so co-cast his vote early in person. before election day and he even had to show i.d. because that's the law in illinois for early voters. though not for voters on election day. >> hello? >> good to see you. to this young lady? she looks like she's in charge. >> i've got my driver's license. >> it says here that you received the absentee ballot? is this it? >> i assume it is. i hope so. if not, this will be really embarrassing. >> did you just look to see --

how about that? thank you. >> the president joined more than seven million americans who have already voted early. his campaign is working hard to bank as many of these preelection day voters as possible. >> all across the country we're seeing a lot of early voting. it means you don't have to figure out whether you need to take time off work, figure out how to pick up the kids and still cast your ballot. if something happens on election day, you will have already taken care of it. if it's bad weather, you won't get wet or, in chicago, snowy. but this was really convenient. i can't tell you who i voted for. >> early voting was a key factor in his 2008 victory and this year it looks like the president's got an edge again. new polling shows him ahead with early voters.

up by 15 points in north carolina. 36 points in eye way. and 30 points in ohio. those numbers explain why all year republicans have been trying to limit early voting and suppress the vote. joining me now, two men who stood up to protect the rights of voters in ohio. democratic election officials dennis lieberman and todd richie were fired by ohio's republican secretary of state for trying to protect voting rights, for standing up for more voting hours. today a judge refused to give them their jobs back. thank you both for being here. and let me just say, you are two champions for democracy and we are all sorry for this ruling and that it didn't go your way. we are all losers in this. dennis, let me start with you. does this ruling today make you regret your decision to stand up

for voting rights? >> absolutely not. tom and i were talking about this earlier. we would not have changed a thing. we would have done everything exactly the way that we did it. this was never about tom and i. this has been, from the very beginning, about allowinging people to vote and about making it accessible. and about doing the right thing. and i feel we've done that. today's ruling was only about whether we should be granted a preliminary injunction. in the sixth sir kit, that's a difficult thing to have obtained. we knew it was an outside chance but we tried. and we don't regret it. we don't regret a thing. >> now, tom, after all that you've gone through with your secretary of state, jon husted, do you trust the voting process

in ohio? >> oh, absolutely. i think that we're going to see what dennis and i stood up for is the same principles we started this job with and that's to give the voters the right to vote as often as they did in 2008 and with the federal court's ruling, those folks are going to be able to vote early. they are going to be able to vote on the weekend before election day. so what we've stood up for has been accomplished in oand i wout change anything in one way. the secretary is not going to suppress the vote in ohio. we're going to win for barack obama on election day and carry montgomery county to the top of the blue tag and the rest of the state of ohio. there is no way that this secretary of state is going to fool the people of ohio and we intend to win this election. this is just one mild stop along the way for dennis and i. we have done the right thing, we're proud of what we've done, and we appreciate the support we've gotten from the people in ohio. everywhere we've been, people

have stood up for us, our friends are there, our families are there. you know what, on election day when our president's re-elected, we're going to be proud to stand up with him and everyone that helped get him elected. >> well, that's inspiring. let me ask you, do you think dennis, tom, do you think that any of these things by husted has in any way stopped people from voting? >> absolutely not. >> in fact, i was joking with somebody the other day, when this is all done, i think i might nominate him for democrat of the year because he has done more by firing tom and i to get people in ohio excited to come out and vote and to bring the national attention, the whole arena of early voting. it's remarkable. i think it's backfired on him and i think people are coming

out in droves to vote and to vote for president obama. >> in our county alone, we're ahead of where we were at the same time frame in 2008. so that ought to paint a picture of what is going to happen. he has a plan. a plan for defeat and we're going to win for barack obama and our county and in this state. no doubt in our minds. >> so people are reminded he tried to eliminate the early voting days, and fired lieberman and richie, the two of you for standing up, and earlier in person voting in ohio was 28,000 votes in 208. now it's so far 28,023. so it seems like you're going to have more. you already have more votes than in 2008. i end this with how i began it. you are two champions for democracy and i want you to know

that many people around the country starting or ending with me, whatever your preference, really admire and respect you. you put your jobs on the line and stand up and the least all of us can do is go to the polls and stand up to vote. thank you both for your time tonight and thank you for standing up. >> thank you for everything you've done. >> thank you. does the romney family own voting machines? our facebook fans have been asking. we have answers, next. ♪

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on gasoline. i am probably going to the gas station about once a month. last time i was at a gas station was about...i would say... two months ago. i very rarely put gas in my chevy volt. i go to the gas station such a small amount that i forget how to put gas in my car. [ male announcer ] and it's not just these owners giving the volt high praise. volt received the j.d. power and associates appeal award two years in a row. ♪ i close tonight with a story that a lot of people have been worrying about and asking me to look into. there have been reports of ties between mitt romney's family and

some of the voting machines being used in this election. here's what we know. tagg romney, the governor's oldest son, is the founder of an investment firm named hig capital and that company is itself a major investor in hart incentive, it's voting machines all across the country. in particular, people are worried about the hart voting machine that will be used in two counties in the battleground state of ohio. now, election officials in that state insist that hart has nothing to do with the operation and maintenance of these machines in this election. as far as tagg romney's involvement in all of this, his company is pretty far removed and we will keep an eye on this. we are looking and trying to connect the do.